Forms for Encounter and Exchange: World Centred Education for Photography, Art and Social Practice

Exploring the opportunities of world-centred education1 in university photography and art, we reflect on Forms for Encounter & Exchange: the Collingwood Studio — a community-partnered course embedded in a local neighbourhood on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne, Australia. We teach this interdisciplinary studio course as a ‘collaborative 14-week artist residency’ to undergraduate photography, art, and media students. The course challenges western art school pedagogies of individualism, competition, and transactional engagement with publics through nurturing long-term relationships in the local community sector. We write from our position as white settlers on stolen First Peoples’ lands in Australia; and therefore, we understand our perspectives and experiences of place and community to be incomplete and partial. Recognising the limits of our positionality, we begin this paper by diagnosing our own critiques of western university art education. We then conceptualise our pedagogic approach at the intersection of our respective disciplines of documentary photography and socially engaged art before discussing practical examples of student community-partnered creative projects. Finally, we share a collection of ethical questions posed by students and partners that serve to deepen our approach to teaching beyond the curriculum.